4. St. Altmann’s mummified head, dressed in a red cap. (Sorry, no picture available, which is probably best for all concerned. Think of a cross between the Grim Reaper and Santa Claus.)

5. The five rooms (!) of decorations made using the skeletons of 4000 dead (I think) Capuccin Monks. Don’t worry–this was not a sacrilege, as it was constructed by the Capuccin Monks who were still not dead (yet). Sorry about the weird picture–pictures are strictly forbidden, so we had to take this shot on the QT.

One of the five (!) rooms decorated by Capuccin monks using the remains of their 4000 dead predecessors. Yep, those are all real bones. Why isn't there a Disney ride based on this?

6. If you know of another contender, let us know, preferably with a picture (or at least a vivid description).

One response to “Your vote counts! What’s the weirdest relic?”

Well, Agnes was twelve years old and wouldn’t bow to the Roman Emporer because of her devotion to Jesus. The guards dragged her to a brother to make her a prostitute but she begged one guard to behead her instead. Her skull is preserved in a side chapel in the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone in Rome’s Piazza Navona. It’s a small skull, the size of a childs.

The Cluny in Paris has the breast reliquary of St Agatha. Because she wouldn’t renounce her Christian beliefs, the Roman guards rolled her in burning coals and cut off her breast. The reliquary is a beautiful bronze bust of a woman–life size–but where her breasts would be is laticed metal work which allegedly contain her dessicated breast.

Making up in fame for its humdrum body part, the skull of Mary Magdalene is in the basilica in Vezelay, France. She apparently left in a small boat, crossed the Mediterranean and landed in Provence. Her skull is contained in a glass box in the basement chapel.

My favorite, however, are the eyes of St. Lucy. Once again, unwilling to bow before the Roman Emporer, she was killed but not before they gauged out her eyes. Her relics are in the church, San Geremia, in Venice.

St. Catherine’s thumb is in Sienna. There are several tongues, incorruptible brains of Saints, and other body parts there too. But the weirdest of the incorruptibles are the relics of Jesus’ foreskin, allegedly in various churches in Rome, as is the foreskin of St. Stephen the Martyr.